WASHINGTON – Whatever might be ailing Matt Kemp – and he’s had left shoulder and right knee issues this season – the rest of the Dodgers figure he’ll need to carry them if the club is going to make the playoffs.

Kemp sure was right in the middle of things Wednesday against the Washington Nationals.

In a wild second game of a doubleheader, Kemp was ruled safe at home to give the Dodgers a six-run lead in the fourth even though TV replays clearly showed third baseman Ryan Zimmerman’s head-over-heels lunging tag already had been applied to runner Adrian Gonzalez for the inning’s final out.

After Washington used a six-run eighth to tie the score, Kemp led off the ninth with a go-ahead homer off closer Tyler Clippard, and the struggling Dodgers grabbed a 7-6 victory for a doubleheader split that prevented the Nationals from sewing up their first playoff berth since moving from Montreal in 2005.

“I don’t think he’ll tell anybody, but I don’t think he’s feeling 100 percent,” Gonzalez said about Kemp. “There are a couple things that are still lingering there, a little bit of pain. He’s battling through it, and he’s doing a great job of just playing through this and being the team leader that he is.”

Still, even Kemp was willing to concede the phantom run the umpires said he scored should not have counted.

“It looked pretty close. I actually probably should have been running just forward and not looking back. … I don’t know if I quite made it or not,” Kemp said, before asking reporters whether they had seen a replay.

Informed that he should not have scored, Kemp said: “Actually, yeah, I don’t think I did. But we got lucky right there. We stole a run.”

That extra run really loomed large when the hosts – who had won the opener 3-1 thanks largely to Jordan Zimmermann’s six innings of one-run baseball – wound up sending 12 batters to the plate while scoring six runs in the eighth.

“At the time, I don’t think anyone thought it was a really big deal, but it turned out to be a big deal,” Zimmerman said. “It was 5-0, and they just make it 6-0.”

Crew chief Mike Winters declined to comment.

“Calls like that, you never know when they’re going to come back and kick you,” said Washington’s Michael Morse, who delivered a leadoff homer and a two-run single in the eighth.

The announced crowd of 26,931 was getting loud, perhaps anticipating a comeback and playoff-clinching victory, when Kemp drove an 0-2, elevated fastball from Clippard (2-5) over the wall in center for his 19th homer.

“I can’t remember ever putting a ball in that spot and getting hurt like that in my whole career,” said Clippard, who earned his 32nd save of the season in Game 1. “It’s a tough one to swallow, but nothing I can do about it now.”

Josh Beckett, who started Game 2 and threw seven scoreless innings before getting into trouble in the eighth, said Kemp will need to do well for the Dodgers to reach the postseason. The Dodgers are two games out of the last NL wild-card berth.

Ronald Belisario (7-1) earned the win by getting the last two outs of the eighth inning. Brandon League picked up his third save with a hitless ninth.

Washington’s victory in Game 1 was the Dodgers’ ninth loss in 12 games – and lowered the host’s magic number for securing at least a wild-card spot to one. But the Nationals must wait at least another day to be certain of making the playoffs.

“We’re not shooting for a playoff spot. We’re shooting to win a division,” Clippard said. “So regardless if we won tonight or not, that’s not really where we want to be.”

Beckett left in the eighth after allowing four runs – three earned – and five hits. By then, Johnson had pulled starters Jayson Werth, Zimmerman and Adam LaRoche – Washington’s Nos. 1-3-4 hitters.

While Beckett was terrific for a time, retiring 13 consecutive batters in one stretch, the Dodgers got to Nationals starter John Lannan almost from the outset. Making his second start since taking over Stephen Strasburg’s slot in the rotation, Lannan looked little like the guy who entered the night 3-0 with a 2.41 ERA in the majors in 2012 – and much more like the guy who spent most of the year at Triple-A Syracuse.